{\input pounds
\def \itp{{\it \$}}
\def \uitp{{\tenu \$}} % Upright pound sign for demo
\def\footnoterule{}
%
%
\tenpoint\rm
\centerline{\bf Noughts and Crosses}
\medskip\noindent
I discovered \TeX\ as a result of breaking my leg. I needed something to
read in hospital and, having read a review of \TB\ in {\it Byte\/},
purchased a copy. I was hooked, but it took me another year to get \TeX\
working. During that time I acquired an Acorn {\it Archimedes\/} and the
Stanford tapes and spent a long time trying to persuade \TeX\ to run. However,
while {\Tangle} tangles itself, compiles and runs without difficulty, and
\TeX\ tangles and compiles, {\IniTeX} seems to be too large a program to
compile on a one-megabyte Archie. I find this surprising (but perhaps this is
because I am a lawyer rather than a computer professional and so don't
understand these things).
It seems from Volume B of {\it Computers \& Typesetting} and from the {\Tangle}
documentation that a lot of the procedures and functions in {\IniTeX} are
surplus --- after all, no-one uses {\IniTeX} for actual typesetting. I
accordingly spent many hours chopping ``unnecessary'' parts out of the Pascal
code, with extremely interesting, but largely unsuccessful, results. At this
stage I took to heart the advice Malcolm Clark gave in \TeXline\ No.~6, and
tried asking a human. Naturally I chose Malcolm. Within a fortnight I was
parted from my money and attending \TeX 88 and there I was introduced to
Graham Toal who kindly transferred his version of Common \TeX\ to my machine.
I am delighted with the results, and it does seem to be quite fast. The
Professor claims in the {\Tangle} documentation that \TeX\ will \TeX\
\TeX{} on a DEC~10 in 3600 seconds, that is to say, roughly an hour.
Common \TeX\ on the {\it Archimedes} takes approximately 19 minutes, 58.16
seconds.
Malcolm himself won the prize for the best paper delivered at the Conference,
which he called ``Whither \TeX?'' or ``Why has \TeX\ not taken over the
world?''. He drew our attention to the fact that \TeX\ is mainly used by
academics and not by those of us in the outside world, and those of us out
here
tend to have no contact with you lot. I agree, but the reason why \TeX\ has
not taken over the British Isles is, it seems to me, far simpler. Plain
\TeX\ is intended to be used with the Computer Roman fonts. But these fonts
were designed by someone who, it seems, had never heard of the ``special
relationship''. Who in the British Isles, apart from the occasional Spaniard
or homesick Australian wants to typeset a Spanish Shriek, whatever that may be?`
However, although academics consider that money is something that should not be
discussed in public, most of us in the outside world frequently need to use a
pound sign. Many Americans apparently do not
know what a pound sign is. Even the Index to \TB\ says ``pound
sign, {\it see\/} hash mark'' (see also {\bf Macros for Outlining} by James
W.~Walker in {\sc TUGboat} Volume 9, No.~1, p.~61: ``I chose to mark a new topic
with a pound sign (\#)'').
Exercise 9.7 in \TB\ says that ``in plain \TeX's italic font, the
`\$' sign comes out as`{\it \$\/}'. This gives you a way to refer to pounds
sterling''. Wow. And this comes from someone who at the end of the \TeX book
exhorts us to ``{\sc Go Forth} now and create {\sl masterpieces of the
publishing art!\/}''. An italic pound sign looks awful:
{\obeylines
\itp 396, \itp943.56, \itp0.87.
}
In an article in \TeX niques No.~6, Christina Thiele pointed out
that the unslanted italic font contains an unslanted pound sign, and this is
considerably better than the normal version:
{\obeylines
\uitp 396, \uitp943.56, \uitp0.87.
}
\noindent However, it is only available directly, that is to say, without using
magnified fonts, in the ten-point size. Further I still find it subjectively
wrong. It is too high, and in some fonts too far away from the money.
For some reason it seems better for the lower squiggle of the pound to descend
below the baseline, which is, of course, the way that the pound sign is used in
longhand. My own macros therefore put the pound sign into an |\hbox| which is
then shifted in the appropriate directions. Traditionally lawyers in this
country have tended to use 12-point type with footnotes at a smaller size, and
so I have modified the size-switching {\tt manmac} macros in Appendix E of the
\TeX book to provide me with what I consider to be reasonable pound signs in
various sizes, although I have found that the different sizes require different
amounts of correction to be added:
\par
12-point Roman:\nl
\indent{\twelvepoint\pounds 396, \pounds 943.56, \pounds 0.87}\nl
\indent{12-point Slanted:}\nl
\indent{\twelvepoint\sl\pounds 396, \pounds 943.56, \pounds 0.87}\nl
\indent{12-point Italic:}\nl
\indent{\twelvepoint\it\pounds 396, \pounds 943.56, \pounds 0.87}\nl
\indent{\rm 10-point Roman:}\nl
\indent\indent\pounds 396, \pounds 943.56, \pounds 0.87\nl
\indent{10-point Slanted:}\nl
\indent\indent{\sl \pounds 396, \pounds 943.56, \pounds 0.87}\nl
\indent{10-point Italic:}\nl
\indent\indent{\it\pounds 396, \pounds 943.56, \pounds 0.87}
\par\noindent
It will be seen that I find that the position of the pound sign can even be
improved in the sloping fonts. So far as the bold font is concerned,
the italic pound sign looks distinctly odd:
%\noindent \bf \pounds 396, \pounds 943.56, \pounds 0.87
{\def\bpounds{{\tenbfit\$}}
\bf \bpounds 396, \bpounds 943.56, \bpounds 0.87}
\noindent A version using ``poor man's bold'' (page 386 of \TB) can be used,
but is far from perfect:
{\bf \pounds 396, \pounds 943.56, \pounds 0.87}
\noindent
The typewriter font has an italic poundsign, but it is quite ghastly.
In 12-point the upright italic 10-point pound sign can be used at a pinch:
{\def\pounds{{\twelvetiit\ttpo}}
12-point, tt-style pound sign:\nl
\indent{\twelvepoint\tt \pounds 396, \pounds 943.56, \pounds 0.87}\nl
{\def\pounds{{\tenu\$}}
\indent10-point, upright italic pound sign:\nl
\indent\indent\tt\pounds 396, \pounds 943.56, \pounds 0.87}
\noindent
Some people might consider that a version using
``extremely poor man's bold'' (or ``somewhat gaunt and
undernourished man's bold'') was better:
{\def\pounds{{\epmb\$}}
10-point ``epmb'' pound sign:\nl
\indent\indent\tt \pounds 396, \pounds 943.56, \pounds 0.87}}
The relevant parts of the macros which I use are as follows ---
\smallskip
{\abovedisplayskip=0pt\belowdisplayskip=0pt\parindent=0pt
\begintt
% First the poundsign fonts:
\font\tenu=cmu10 % unslanted text italic
\font\twelveu=cmu10 scaled \magstep1
\font\twelvebfit=cmbxti10 scaled \magstep1
\font\tenbfit=cmbxti10
\font\twelvetiit=cmitt10 scaled \magstep1
\font\tentiit=cmitt10
% Now add the poundsign macros:
\def\rmpo{\leavevmode
\lower.055ex\hbox{\$}\kern-.0em}
\def\itpo{\leavevmode
\lower.055ex\hbox{\$}\kern-.09em}
\def\slpo{\leavevmode
\lower.055ex\hbox{\$}\kern-.07em}
\def\bfpo{\leavevmode
\pmb{\lower.025ex\hbox{\$}\kern-.04em}}
\def\ttpo{\leavevmode
\lower.0ex\hbox{\$}\kern0em}
\def\ttkludgepo{\leavevmode
\epmb{\lower.0ex\hbox{\$}\kern-.0em}}
\def\pmb#1{\setbox0=\hbox{#1}%
\kern-.025em\copy0\kern-\wd0
\kern.05em\copy0\kern-\wd0
\kern-.025em\raise.0003em\box0 }
% Extremely poor man's bold
\def\epmb#1{\setbox0=\hbox{#1}
\kern-.005em\copy0\kern-\wd0
\raise.01em\copy0\kern-\wd0
\kern.01em\copy0\kern-\wd0
\kern-.005em\raise.01em\box0 }
%This is adapted from the 10-point
%manmac macros: although this article
%uses 10 point, who else does?
\def\twelvepoint{%
\def\rm{\def\pounds
{{\twelveu\rmpo}}\fam0\twelverm}%
\textfont0=\twelverm
\scriptfont0=\eightrm
\scriptscriptfont0=\sixrm
\textfont1=\teni \scriptfont1=\eighti
\scriptscriptfont1=\sixi
\textfont2=\tensy \scriptfont2=\eightsy
\scriptscriptfont2=\sixsy
\textfont3=\tenex \scriptfont3=\tenex
\scriptscriptfont3=\tenex
\def\it{\def\pounds{{\itpo}}%
\fam\itfam\twelveit}%
\textfont\itfam=\twelveit
\def\sl{%
\def\pounds{{\twelveit\slpo}}%
\fam\slfam\twelvesl}%
\textfont\slfam=\twelvesl
\endtt
\begintt
\def\bf{%
\def\pounds{{\twelveu\bfpo}}%
\fam\bffam\twelvebf}% pmb poundsign
\textfont\bffam=\twelvebf
\scriptfont\bffam=\eightbf
\scriptscriptfont\bffam=\sixbf
%\def\tt{\def\pounds{{\twelvetiit\ttpo}}%ugh
% \fam\ttfam\twelvett}% ugh!
\def\tt{\def\pounds{{\tenu\$}}%
\fam\ttfam\twelvett}% odd poundsign
\textfont\ttfam=\twelvett
\tt \ttglue=.5em plus.25em minus.15em
\normalbaselineskip=20pt
\def\caps{\def\pounds{~}\fourteencaps}
\def\scaps{% don't use the pound sign
\def\pounds{{\twelveu\rmpo}}\twelvecaps}
\setbox\strutbox=
\hbox{\vrule height14pt depth6pt width\z@}%
\normalbaselines\rm}
\endtt}
And this brings me back to the point of this article. In my view \TeX\ will
never suceeed in the British Isles unless it is supplied with fonts which
contain proper pound signs.
Although Professor Knuth naturally wants to preserve control over the
Computer Modern fonts, a version of most of the 76 fonts containing a pound
sign must be produced if \TeX\ is to stand any chance at all of taking over the
British Isles, or even of being used by more than a few eccentric
mathematicians. For some years I have used an old Diablo daisy~wheel printer.
I have had no difficulty in purchasing daisy~wheels (with the `UK' suffix) which
contain a pound sign. There should similarly be a standard set of Computer
Modern UK fonts.
There are, of course, two difficulties. The first is where the pound sign
should be positioned in the fonts. The answer would seem to be, follow {\sc
ibm} and make the pound sign a `top-bit-set' noughts and crosses sign. The
second is who would produce the fonts? The ideal person would be Professor
Knuth, but this is not essential so long as he approves them so that they
can properly be described as Computer Modern. It seems from {\sl Computers \&
Typesetting} that at Stanford a lot of the work on \TeX\ and related subjects
has been done by students. Would it be possible for a graduate or undergraduate
student in Britain to do the necessary work on the fonts as part of his course?
If any large companies use \TeX\ it might, perhaps, be possible to persuade them
to fund this work and, as a result, achieve Malcolm's objective of bringing the
academic and outside worlds together in the use of \TeX.
\smallskip
\rightline{\sl Roger C-H. Horne}}